


Quantum Entanglement

by Lyrstzha



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternative Families, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Bonding, First Time, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Queerplatonic Relationships, Romance, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Tropes, aromantic laura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7216930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The funny thing – and by funny, Clint means weird, but also kind of ha-ha, in retrospect – is that it takes over a week to figure out that he and Coulson are telepathically bonded. It seems like the sort of thing that should have been obvious from the get-go, but neither of them notice; the thousand little ways they've gotten used to reading each other over the years are almost like telepathy, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quantum Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [umbo (shell)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shell/gifts).



> Russian translation is both in mouseover and at the end of the text.

It turns out much later that the device is Asgardian, but they won't know that until Thor shows up several years later. At the time, it's just an 0-8-4 some hikers in Chugach National Forest in Alaska stumbled over. Clint wouldn't even be on retrieval duty that day – he's waiting on Natasha to be done questioning the arms dealer they extracted from Istanbul before they go out hunting his suppliers – but Coulson does love an 0-8-4, and Natasha doesn't need either of them when she's interrogating. They might as well take the day to go secure whatever it is. It's nice to get out in crisp, spruce-scented air, anyway.

“It's weird,” one hiker tells Coulson while Clint tries to look unobtrusive yet vaguely official at his side. “I saw this, like, fancy metal ring thingy halfway under a rock. So I picked it up, right, and nothing happened. But then Tara reached out to take it from my hand. And then we both felt this...” the girl trails off and makes grasping motions with both hands like she might actually palpitate the word she's looking for out of the air. “Dizziness,” she finishes, looking dissatisfied. “Except not exactly dizziness. It was kind of like trying to watch TV and – ”

“ – have a serious conversation at the same time,” finishes her friend seamlessly. “Yeah.” The two hikers look at each other for a moment, and turn in unison to say, in perfect stereo, “Can we go now?” It would seem a bit creepy if they didn't look kind of adorable doing it, like two puppies from the same litter tilting their heads simultaneously. Clint's seen attack robots operate in such perfect concert, but this, in some indefinable way that sticks in the back of his brain, is somehow not like that at all.

“Well, it could sound more dangerous,” Coulson remarks after they've gone, apparently having felt the same not-threat from the pair that Clint did. “And you have to admit it's pretty.” 

Which it really is. It's ring-shaped, as the hiker described, and probably just large enough to fit over a person's head. Complex raised designs cover the shining golden surface in abstract patterns, and amber-colored stones stud the outer rim. It might be Clint's imagination, but he thinks faint light might be glowing from the stones. He kind of wants to touch it.

Nevertheless, no agent is stupid enough to touch an 0-8-4 barehanded. Or even with gloves if it can possibly be avoided. They've done the tongs-and-containment unit dance before, even while the 0-8-4 in question had been doing much more alarming things than just sitting there and looking relatively innocent. 

But bad luck in the form of a medium-sized earthquake strikes at the worst possible moment, when Coulson is just finessing the object into the container for transport. The tongs slip, and Clint jerks just slightly as his instincts prompt him to catch the falling ring but his brain catches up and aborts the movement. He and Coulson both try to jump back as the object falls, but the shuddering ground throws them off; Coulson stumbles and drops to one knee. Time seems to slow as Clint looks down to see the object hit the ground edge-on and roll toward Coulson's knee; he lunges to grab Coulson's arm and pull him away, but he touches Phil precisely as the 0-8-4 does. Clint tugs Phil back anyway, and they stare warily at the 0-8-4 as the tremors subside. It continues to do absolutely nothing.

“Well, I don't feel dizzy,” Phil finally says with a shrug after they've eyed the thing for a while. “Or like I'm watching TV and having a serious conversation at the same time. In fact, I feel totally normal.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Clint agrees. He echoes Phil's shrug. “But what are the chances we're not going to have to do a gazillion tests to prove that we're not ice-zombies or something now?”

Phil does that thing where he pretends he's sternly not smiling, like the gravity of his furrowed brow can keep the corners of his mouth from reaching escape velocity. “Protocols are there for a reason, Agent Barton,” he chides.

Clint snorts. “That's what the robot overlords – ” 

“ – want you to think,” Phil finishes, chuckling under his breath and shaking his head. His not-smile stops pretending to be anything other than it is.

But really, there's nothing weird about it. They're like that all the time. 

 

Clint's not wrong about the gazillion tests. They get an entire alphabet of scans and tests, and Clint's pretty sure he's dehydrated after all the bodily fluids he gives up to various tubes and cups. The reek of antiseptic is particularly depressing after being in the great outdoors in Alaska.

Halfway through hour three, from the next exam bay over, Phil snaps “Barton,” quellingly just as Clint opens his mouth to ask if they've been tested for lycanthropy yet.

“Spoilsport,” Clint grumbles instead.

“He has a headache he hasn't mentioned,” Phil tells the doctor cheerfully. “Maybe you should look into that.”

“I just get those when people stick me with a couple dozen needles,” Clint objects immediately with his best beseeching eyes at the doctor; she doesn't look moved, so the damage is probably done. He shoots a sideways glare over at Phil, who arches an eyebrow at him. “I hate you so hard right now,” he mutters. More loudly, he adds to the doctor, “And hey, Agent Coulson fell pretty hard on that left knee. He's just pretending it doesn't hurt. You should probably look into that, too.”

“Did you have to go with mutually assured destruction?” Phil demands, and Clint thinks probably most people wouldn't hear the wry twist under his tone.

“You started it,” Clint tells him with considerably more spirit than he's felt capable of since hour one. “Misery, meet company.”

They spend hour four debating the appropriate medical tests for increasingly outlandish imaginary conditions; it blunts the edge of frustrated, twitchy restlessness that Clint gets in these situations, and he knows without asking that this is why Phil does it. Medical finally releases them just as Phil is arguing the merits of using ultrasound to detect chest-bursting alien larvae. The medical staff don't so much as bat an eye the whole time, because none of this is remotely unusual for Clint and Phil.

Afterward, they go for pizza without so much as discussing whether or not they're hungry and what for. They just carry on their debate while they walk to the pizza joint around the corner. Clint stakes out a table in the back while Phil orders for both of them, also without discussion. Phil passes the parmesan shaker before Clint even asks for it, and Clint scoots his chair back a little so as not to accidentally bump into Phil's aching knee without even thinking about it. None of this is remarkable.

That night, Clint dreams astonishingly vividly of growing up in Wisconsin. He can taste the evanescent bite of snowflakes on his tongue. But when he wakes up, he shrugs it off; it doesn't seem important.

 

The funny thing – and by funny, Clint means weird, but also kind of ha-ha, in retrospect – is that it takes over a week to figure out that he and Coulson are telepathically bonded. It seems like the sort of thing that should have been obvious from the get-go, but neither of them notice; the thousand little ways they've gotten used to reading each other over the years are almost like telepathy, after all.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a mission that clarifies things for them both. They're on a raid of a Ten Rings training and storage facility in Afghanistan that turns out to be significantly more staffed and equipped than intel suggested, when comms suddenly go silent. Clint might think it was his hearing aids cutting out, but he can hear the hiss of dead air. He's alone, worming his way through a ventilation shaft, and he's too well-trained to stop to catch his breath just because his chest clenches with worry for Phil and Natasha. But then Phil is back in his ear, even if no one else is and neither of them can reach anyone outside. It's like Phil's voice is a key unlocking the bands crushing his lungs. But that's not really a new thing.

Clint climbs his way up to the highest perch he can find in the ceiling duct-work, overlooking a labyrinth of stacked shipping containers and pallets of supplies. He spots for Phil, providing guidance and sniping, as they methodically clear the main hangar. From there, they'll press on through the facility until they find their people, who are absolutely not dead. 

Just about a minute after they've cleared the room, Natasha pops out of a ventilation duct beside Clint. “I thought I'd find you here,” she says by way of greeting, and he's so relieved to see her it almost hurts, like the sting of warm water on over-chilled flesh.

“You good?” Clint asks her immediately, even though she looks pretty much as polished and deadly as ever.

“Nothing I can't walk off,” she assures him. “I left Ruiz and McPherson on the roof working on bringing down the jamming device so we can get comms back up. They want to take it with us when they've got it deactivated. Never seen anything that blocks such a broad spectrum of frequencies, apparently.”

Clint frowns at her. “But,” he starts, then falters and turns to look back down at Coulson, who is maybe 500 yards away and looking right back up at him.

 _The hell?_ says Phil distinctly in his ear. But Clint can see that his lips don't move.

“Great. More tests,” Clint sighs aloud. And for the first time, he notices that some of the constellation of annoyance, anxiety, and uncertainty that surrounds that thought must be coming from Phil. He can't put his finger on how exactly he knows this, but he's sure.

 

“That's interesting,” Dr. Okoli murmurs for the dozenth time without explanation. She's absorbed in the tablet in front of her and seems to have forgotten both of them.

Clint is about an inch away from exploding with impatience when Phil subtly leans forward slightly and places a hand palm down on the armrest of his chair closest to Clint. It's a sign they use in the field to hang tight and trust his lead.

“As thrilled as we are to be interesting, we could stand a little more narrative development here, doc. _What's_ so interesting?” Phil sounds disarmingly charming and calm out loud, but Clint _knows_ there's concern under there. He's just not sure if he can tell that because he knows Phil so well or because he's reading Phil's mind.

“Oh, yes. Sorry.” Doctor Okoli tilts the screen so that they can see, too. Clint recognizes the squiggly lines as brainwaves, but that's about the limit of what they mean to him. “You remember we ran the full battery of tests last week – ”

“Rings a bell,” Phil comments wryly, tapping his right hand over the inside of his left arm, where Clint knows there is still a bit of bruising from the blood draw last week. It occurs to him, though, that he doesn't know this because he's _seen_ it.

“Right. Well, taken _separately_ , your results both seemed normal. See here,” she points at a chart full of more squiggly lines. “Both your EEGs and MEGs – sorry, electro and magnetoencephalographs – match your baselines on file. Which is to say, these are your normal brainwave patterns.”

“Always reassuring to hear,” Phil agrees. “But...?”

“But the first time, Agent Barton simply waited beside you while we took your readings, Agent Coulson. And then vice versa. _This_ time, we engaged each of you in a series of different cognitive tasks while taking readings on the other. We'll have to make this process part of our regular testing protocol, I suppose,” she trails off a bit at the end as she makes a note on her tablet.

“Great,” mutters Clint softly. “Now the whole shebang will probably take _five_ hours every time.”

Phil taps his hand down on the armrest again at this, but he snorts softly in what Clint is sure is sympathetic agreement. “We remember the testing, doc. What's the verdict?” He holds up a finger before she can answer. “In layman's terms, if you could.”

Dr. Okoli pages the tablet to another set of squiggly lines that do not mean a whole lot to Clint. “You see, here?” She taps a particular length of squiggly line with one long, brown finger. “This is your scan, Agent Coulson. Initially, this part shows primarily beta and gamma waves, which is normal for the memory matching task we had you performing at the time; beta and gamma waves predominate when a person is concentrating on a complex task involving cross-modal sensory processing. But right here,” she indicates a little further along, “this corresponds to the time we blindfolded Agent Barton and set him listening to music while you were still working on your own task. Alpha waves predominate when a person is relaxed and receiving no visual input. At this point, _your_ scan showed a noticeable jump in alpha waves. And this is just a single incident of the phenomenon; we recorded at least a dozen.”

Both Phil and Clint look at the scan, then each other. Clint can feel his eyebrows going up.

“So, I'm what, his iPod? His personal stress-relief machine?” It takes until the flippant words come out of his mouth for Clint to hear what that sounds like and snap his jaw shut. _Do not go there_ , he tells himself, just exactly as he hears Phil's laughter in his head.

“I would say rather that you have acquired some form of telepathic link,” Dr. Okoli corrects seriously. “Of course, to ascertain the specifics of this link, we'll require – ”

 _Please do not say 'further testing'_ , Clint and Phil think together, so perfectly in sync that it's impossible to tell their inner voices apart.

“ – further testing,” she finishes predictably. “And you will both have to be suspended from active duty and restricted to base for the time being, of course.”

“Of course,” Phil echoes with a sigh, dutiful and resigned.

“For _how long_?” Clint demands, not quite so resigned to being cooped up and sidelined.

“I'm sorry to say it's too early to tell at this point, Agent,” Dr. Okoli tells him apologetically enough that Clint hesitates to press harder.

Phil's fingertips lift from the armrest between them to tap lightly against Clint's forearm, out of sight of the doctor. Clint gets no sense of words with the gesture, but there is a surge of warmth and concern that brings a flush to his face. It's not like he didn't know that Phil cares about his well-being, but it's a very different thing to feel the strength and depth of that care. Clint shifts away in his seat a little; he knows he doesn't deserve that feeling, and certainly not from someone like Phil.

 _Like hell, Clint_ , Phil's firm voice stamps on Clint's sense of unworthiness hard.

Startled, Clint blinks at him for a moment, not quite able to come up with the objection that he thinks he should.

Clint doesn't need the slight grin twitching at the corner of Phil's mouth to reveal the sense of satisfaction flitting across Phil's thoughts. He almost thinks, as he often has over the years, of how that grin might taste on his tongue. But he's pretty sure he shoves that down before Phil can catch it.

That night, Clint isn't sure what he's dreaming. There's a lot of skin, and sometimes he thinks it's his, but sometimes he thinks it's Phil's; he can't really seem to tell the difference. He _is_ sure that they grind together, cocks pressed tight against each other, until one of them pulls sharply back. He abruptly wakes up achingly hard and curled around an empty space in his bed. He tries to think of the blandest, emptiest thing he can and tells himself that it doesn't mean anything.

 

Another grueling day of testing later, and it's the look on Natasha's face when he tells her about it that makes the whole thing completely real for Clint. Most people couldn't tell, but she's utterly horrified; he's never seen her look so unsettled. Her eyelids actually twitch.

“It's not like Coulson can hear me thinking _all_ the time,” he tries to reassure her, but she doesn't look particularly soothed. “In every test so far it was just, you know, in moments of strong feeling or concentration or whatever.”

“ _уязвимый_ ,” she hisses quietly but vehemently, and Clint would not need to know a word of Russian to understand her.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “But you know how you don't let yourself think about some things during interrogation? I figure it's like that.”

Natasha stares at him like he's lost his mind, or at least his IQ. “And have you often been interrogated by someone you care for so much?”

And she's striking right at the heart of Clint's own worry, of course. He closes his eyes and tries to think of nothing but the color beige until anything too revealing is safely shut away again. It takes longer than he'd like.

 

Nick Fury, on the other hand, looks horrified right out in the open; people on other floors of the building can probably tell. His _everything_ twitches. “What you're telling me is, our security clearance system is basically fucked when it comes to you two.”

Coulson, bless him, sidles just slightly between Clint and Fury. It looks almost like a thoughtless shifting of his weight, but Clint doesn't need a telepathic bond with the man to know it's entirely on purpose.

“Sir,” he begins in a calm voice that sounds just exactly like the tone he takes on comms when things are utterly fubar and he wants Clint and Natasha to know he isn't giving up on them. “I don't think that's the case. Our bond is hardly a constant stream of precise information. I know Agent Barton could really use a sandwich right about now, but I'm not getting anything like access codes or past mission details.” He shoots Clint a glance over his shoulder and shrugs. “It's not exactly giving away the farm, Director.”

Fury snorts derisively. “You already _know_ all his access codes and past mission details,” he snaps. He jerks a thumb at himself. “This is not my reassured face.”

“You have a reassured face?!” Clint asks incredulously before he can stop himself.

 _It's like the Loch Ness Monster_ , Phil thinks wryly. _Some people claim to have seen it, but you know it was just wishful thinking and too much booze._ His face, impressively, betrays nothing as Clint barks out a surprised laugh. “We're working on compartmentalization and control, Sir,” Phil says aloud with all the appropriate professional gravity.

Fury narrows his eye at them suspiciously. “Yeah, we're gonna have to nip this thing right in the bud,” he declares. “I'll light a fire under Okoli and her team.”

Clint is surprised by the twist of regret that chokes him at this, but not as much as he is at the echo he feels from Phil. He has to look away and think of beige again to keep himself from prodding any further to find out what it means.

That night, Clint dreams he is showing Phil something. It's maybe a photo album, something like that. They're flipping past images that move like films, and Clint is saying things like _this is the first bullseye I ever hit_ or _this is the time my brother Barney convinced me that land sharks were real_. And Phil is right there, watching everything keenly, so close that Clint can feel warmth at his back.

 _I'm sorry. You were always so profoundly alone_ , dream-Phil whispers after a while.

 _Not anymore_ , Clint answers before he can stop himself, and then panics so hard he wakes himself up. He buries his head in the sheets and thinks of beige, beige, beige until his breathing slows and he stops feeling the phantom touch of a soothing hand in his hair. He doesn't bother telling himself that it doesn't mean anything.

 

Laura is strangely calm when he tells her over vid link. It's a little unsettling, actually. She doesn't even stop knitting; her needles clack along steadily.

“This is...what's a word that means the opposite of surprising? That.” She has a sort of bemused smile on her face, just like she gets when one of the kids does something that's against the rules but too adorable to get angry about. That time Cooper disassembled the toaster for parts to build a robot, she looked just like this. “Of course you couldn't tell,” she chuckles a little, sounding fond and slightly teasing.

Clint swallows and takes a deep breath like he's bracing for a hit, but he's comfortable with Laura in the same way that he is with Natasha, so he sucks it up and asks, “What's that supposed to mean?”

She smiles at him, warm and easy. “You know I love you. I wouldn't have wanted anybody else as the father of my kids, and I love that you're our family. But do you really think you and I wouldn't notice if we were in each other's heads like that? Or you and Natasha?”

Clint has to look away for a moment. “No,” he finally says, in a voice like he's surrendering something. “Is it...I mean, do you mind?” he manages to add in a much smaller, awkward voice. He's asked her similar questions before, back when he first told her what he was harboring for Phil, but that was different somehow.

“Oh sweetie,” she sighs, and she sounds so infinitely gentle that Clint almost flinches a little. “Maybe I would if we had ever really been, you know,” she dips her head to the side with an upward jerk of her chin, meaning, Clint knows, the romantic kind of life partners. “But that's not us, and what we have works for us both in different ways. I know that for you, having me and the kids here to come home to makes you feel safe. We make that stupid voice in your head that calls you a fuck up quieter. We're an island of normal and calm in your life.”

“You are,” Clint agrees immediately, heartfelt. “I don't tell you enough how much that means to me.”

“You don't,” Laura grins. “You should really get on that.” She wrinkles up her nose and sticks her tongue out at him playfully.

Clint relaxes enough to roll his eyes at her. He really does love her so much, and he doesn't deserve her any more than he does Phil or Natasha. Sure, he started off in life with some truly foul luck, but when it comes to partners now, he's the luckiest man alive. Even if none of the three of them has an iota of romantic interest in him.

“And for me,” she goes on more seriously again, “having you gives me a partner I trust and respect to build a life with. Someone who gives me what I need but doesn't ask me for anything I can't offer.” She shrugs. “Maybe it's not the kind of happy ending everybody would understand, but it's ours. So no, I don't mind if you also want a more romantic kind of partner in your life, any more than you mind that I _don't_ want that. Any more than I minded when you brought Natasha into the family. As long as I know you don't love me any less, we're good.”

“Even if this was a thing – which it isn't, not outside the mess of my own head – it would never change you and me,” Clint promises her solemnly.

Laura finally stops knitting and raises a hand to touch the screen. “Of course I know that, silly,” she whispers softly. “But thanks for saying it.”

“Thanks for...you know, all the things,” Clint breathes, inexplicably a little choked up and awkward. “Hug the kids for me.”

“Always,” agrees Laura with a firm nod. “Come home soon. And bring Coulson with you,” she adds in a tone that brooks no argument.

That night, Clint tries not to sleep at all. He drinks bitter black coffee and shoots arrows on the target range until his entire being quiets down to the simple, familiar rhythm of draw and release. In the morning, at breakfast in the mess, Phil slides into the seat opposite Clint and just looks at him without a word. The dark circles under his eyes are accusation enough. Clint stares into his oatmeal without eating it.

 

“We'd like to try a combination of distance and various types of physical shielding,” Dr. Okoli informs them both later that day. “Cautiously and gradually, of course. We don't want to cause any sort of shock that might result from sudden severance.”

“I see,” Phil says tightly, and he's not looking at Clint so hard it makes Clint's jaw hurt. Phil's voice sounds a little rough-hewn and clipped somehow, like only the toughest words have managed to run the gauntlet of his throat and escape to the outside world. “Of course.”

Clint himself says nothing; he just sits in a chair in Okoli's office as rigidly as a toy soldier left to guard a dusty shelf in an abandoned play room.

Dr. Okoli looks up from her tablet and peers quizzically at them across the desk. She seems to sense the undercurrent of silent tension thrumming through the room. “Director Fury has signed off on these trials,” she says slowly. “I assure you, we'll be taking every precaution to ensure that your disentanglement is a safe procedure.”

The word _disentanglement_ sounds wrong to Clint, like it's echoing impossibly heavily in the room and crushing other sounds under its weight. 

“Of course,” Phil says again, in that voice like coarse stones.

“Of course,” Clint makes himself choke out, and thinks of beige instead of throwing up on his shoes.

He hears Phil's sharp inhale beside him. “Yeah, okay,” Phil mutters after a second, sounding much more like himself. “No.”

“No? I'm sorry, what?” Dr. Okoli frowns at Phil.

“Agent Barton and I are going to need a minute, Doctor,” Phil says smoothly, rising to his feet with a sharp flick of his hand that summons Clint to do likewise; Clint obeys automatically. “We'll get right back to you.”

“But – ” begins the doctor.

“Right back,” Phil calls again briskly over his shoulder, sweeping through the door of her office with Clint in his wake.

They stride through the corridor like they have someplace important to be, and Clint's not quite sure where that is until he realizes that they're standing in front of the door to his own room.

“Here,” Phil declares and stands aside to let Clint open the door. “On your own turf, where you'll be as comfortable as we can make you without actually leaving the base.”

Clint lets them in, but then he turns to stand in the center of the room, adrift and strung tighter than one of his bows. He takes a moment to think of beige.

“Could you please cut it out with the beige?” Phil sighs, throwing up his hands. “It's like being smothered in the blandest porridge ever cooked.”

“Sorry,” Clint mumbles, and tries grey instead.

“Not really an improvement.” Phil pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and looks vaguely pained. “Look, I'm not saying you have to stop trying to keep a block up. I know how you feel about your privacy, and I respect that. I'm just saying, _trust me_ to respect that, okay? I'm not going to go digging for anything you don't want me to see.” He looks at Clint with a hopeful earnestness that is unfairly irresistible, in Clint's opinion.

“I trust you,” Clint agrees reflexively, because he absolutely does. He makes a sincere effort to let himself relax a little, loosening the set of his shoulders and letting the ripple of release travel down his spine.

“Much better,” Phil breathes with relief, rolling his shoulder like he feels the lessening tension there, too. “You were giving us both a headache. Thanks.” He smiles at Clint a little, and it almost makes Clint reach for the beige again before he stops himself. “Can we sit?”

“Sure,” Clint agrees, nodding his head at his desk chair and sinking to sit on the foot of his bed himself.

Phil turns the chair so he can face Clint. He folds his hands in his lap, which Clint knows is a thing he does when he's nervous and wants to keep it from showing; this is, of course, pointless under the circumstances: the itch of Phil's nervousness is under Clint's skin, too, where he can barely tell it apart from his own. There's a curl of something else bubbling up in their chests, though – something that feels dangerously like hope, which Clint has learned the hard way not to believe in.

“I want,” Phil begins, then stops with a quick shake of his head. “No, sorry, that's not the right place to start.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His eyes move over Clint's face searchingly. “How about _you_ tell me what _you_ want. Out loud, in actual words.”

Clint goes totally blank for a terrifying moment and just freezes.

“ _Clint_ ,” Phil says insistently, and reaches out a hand that doesn't quite touch Clint's shoulder. Phil's fingers flex on empty air just above Clint's collarbone, a ghost of contact that he can almost feel through his shirt before Phil draws his hand back. “It's okay,” Phil murmurs quietly, like he's talking to a spooked animal or a scared child. “Just _tell me_.”

Clint huffs out a shaky breath and looks away. “Why? I think you already know,” he counters.

“Whatever I think I've figured out now, I can't be the one to say something, Clint. Not even in my own head. I can't.” Phil fixes him with an intense, pointed look, the way he does in the field when he's trying to send a message without saying it. “It can't be me. Do you get what I mean?”

And suddenly, Clint does. It's right there, plain to see once he stops staring into the abyss of his own issues. It's like a sharp flash of light, surprising and clear and revelatory.

“You're my handler,” Clint says slowly, like he's feeling his way into the conversation as if it were a minefield. “My superior. You can't,” and Clint trails off into a vague hand motion there, but he thinks _You can't make the first move, because you think it wouldn't be fair to me_. It's too unbelievable to say aloud.

Phil's face eases in obvious relief. “Exactly,” he sighs, smiling faintly. “Please, Clint. Tell me.”

But Clint never met an easy road he couldn't roughen. “It's my fault,” he insists instead, feeling his mouth twist around the syllables unpleasantly. “This was never a thing before. It's because we're in each other's heads. I made you feel things. That's all it is.”

Phil reels back in his chair like Clint's slapped him. “No!” His shocked vehemence is clear enough across Clint's mind that it shuts him up long enough for Phil to add, “Clint, no. _No._ This was always a thing, believe me. You're not making me feel anything I haven't felt for a long time.”

And Clint opens his mouth to object to that, because surely it can't be that easy. Surely he'd have noticed before now if Phil had returned his interest. And why would someone like Phil be interested in a hot mess like him, anyway?

But then Phil is _there_ , inside Clint in a way that is unspeakably intimate. _Don't think of yourself like that, not ever,_ Phil's voice caresses inside Clint's mind. Clint's instinct is to argue, but he can't, not when Phil follows the thought with a wordless jumble of emotion and belief. And Clint can see himself as Phil does, strong and dedicated and brave and selfless, a survivor who keeps getting up no matter how many times he's put down, someone who loves with his whole heart even when it's hopeless, who's suffered but never let it make him hard. Someone who sacrifices himself without ever expecting to be thanked for it. Someone who deserves to be loved. 

It's inconceivable, but irrefutable; as incomprehensible as it is, Clint _knows_ now, right down to his bones, what Phil thinks of him. Clint thinks his eyes have gone watery, but he's honestly too overwhelmed to be sure. “Okay, I'm telling you,” floods out of his mouth before he knows he's going to say it. “I want this. I want _you_. I don't want to be _disentangled_ , and even if we are, I'll still want you.” It's a heady rush to actually say the words, to let them out of the locked corner of his heart where he's been keeping them for so long; Clint laughs a little dazedly at the euphoria lightening his head.

Phil's hand finally closes the space between them then, closing around Clint's own tightly. Phil's thumb brushes slowly over the pulse stuttering at the inside of Clint's wrist. “Thank you,” he breathes softly, sounding almost like a prayer. “Me too, all of it. I want to stay linked, but most of all I want to be with you.”

“Since when?” Clint demands, still not quite believing he hasn't put these thoughts into Phil's head.

“Lisbon,” Phil answers immediately, without even having to think for a moment.

“Lisbon?” Clint demands incredulously, blinking the mist out of his eyes. Because Lisbon was _six years_ ago, and why would Lisbon even be...oh. It occurs to Clint even before the memory flashes across his inner eye from Phil.

Clint had been in a sniper's nest for going on two days without a break to keep an extraction point open for another team by the time they'd finally wrapped the mission. He'd gone back to their safehouse, expecting to crash hard for at least a handful of hours before moving out for their next objective. And Coulson had seemed fine, had told him to get some much-needed rest, but something – Clint's still not even sure what – had just seemed off. They hadn't known each other very well yet then, but there'd just been a sense of shadow nagging at Clint. He'd played his hunch, staying awake and talking to Coulson for the next five hours, making him laugh at stupid stories about pranks he used to pull on the lion tamer back when he'd lived with the circus. It hadn't seemed like much. It wasn't until the following year that Clint even found out that particular day had been the one year anniversary of Coulson's mother's death. It had never really been clear to him how much his company that night had meant to Coulson – it would not be clear to him now, if he couldn't see it from Phil's own eyes.

Clint turns his hand under Phil's, lacing their fingers together more completely. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Phil raises a dubious eyebrow at him and squeezes his hand.

“What, you want poetry?” Clint grins a bit punchily. “Because I can try that, if you want. There once was an agent from Venus, whose mouth was hungry for – ”

Phil slaps his free hand over Clint's mouth, laughing. Clint sees absolutely no reason not to stroke the tip of his tongue across the hollow of Phil's palm. He feels the faint shiver that passes through the skin beneath his lips from both sides.

“You know,” Phil says philosophically, leaving his hands right where they are. “'Right back' is such a vague phrase. It could really mean an hour or so, if you think about it.”

“Mmmhmm,” Clint mumbles into Phil's palm, making sure to rumble the sound across the skin. _He's_ the one actually making the notorious Agent's Agent report back _late_ ; Clint can't stop grinning.

“Or two,” Phil hitches out, pushing himself up and pressing Clint back across the bed in one quick motion that leaves them tangled together as thoroughly in the flesh and they are in their minds.

Clint squirms under him, wriggling until he can catch Phil in the narrow cradle of his hips and wrap a leg tightly around his waist. His hands catch at Phil's shoulders to pull impossibly closer. “I think you had this dream the other night,” he breathes into the shell of Phil's ear, nipping at it as long as he's there. “I woke up before I found out what happens next.”

Phil groans out, “Let me show you,” as he grinds himself in one long, delicious slide against Clint that's going to feel even better when they're skin-to-skin.

“I want what you want,” Clint husks back fervently, and it may be the truest, most surprising, and most exultant thing he has ever said in his life.

 

It is actually a little over two hours by the time they make it back to Dr. Okoli and tell her apologetically but firmly that there will be no “disentanglement process.” Afterward, they don't bother to wait for Fury's summons; they just go straight to his office.

“The completely secure and covert communications aspect alone is worth investigating,” Phil is insisting earnestly, after about twenty minutes of arguing.

“As we proved in Afghanistan without even knowing what we were doing,” Clint adds helpfully. He's trying not to slip back to thinking about the way Phil gasps Clint's name like a prayer when he comes, or the possessive way his hands curve over Clint's hipbones when he takes Clint's cock in his mouth.

 _Okay, maybe some beige now after all_ , Phil prompts him, but Clint also gets a quick flash of his own back arched like a drawn bow to offer himself to Phil, so it's kind of a mixed message.

Phil clears his throat. “Plus,” he says brightly, as if nothing naked is going on in his mind at all, “I suspect we'll be able to track each other over distances, too. Maybe even tap into each other's skills, with practice.”

Fury eyes them both suspiciously. “So you're telling me this isn't a bug, it's a feature,” he says flatly. 

“Exactly!” Clint and Phil exclaim together unintentionally.

“And if I ordered you back to Dr. Okoli to work on getting rid of this thing?” Fury demands.

There is a wordless surge of denial swirling between Clint and Phil for a moment, building like a wave until it spills over in Phil's voice.

“We would really rather you didn't do that, Sir,” Phil says so evenly and carefully that it almost sounds threatening.

Fury regards him thoughtfully for a moment, and the keenness of his gaze suddenly reminds Clint that the Director and Phil have been friends a long time. “Line in the sand time?” he finally asks.

“Line in the sand time,” Phil agrees firmly with a decisive jerk of his chin.

Fury throws up his hands and huffs out an annoyed-sounding sigh. “Fine. Guess I got ten stranger things going on before breakfast, most days. But you both get however many more tests Dr. Okoli wants to run to figure out how this thing works and exactly what it can do.”

Clint groans on the inside, but nods along with Phil. “Will do, Sir. I think we still have whole patches of skin that don't have needle marks yet.”

Fury snorts. “Okoli can fix that. And if you two run into some bug in this feature, I expect to hear about it sooner rather than later, understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” they chorus dutifully.

But then Fury unexpectedly flashes a wicked grin at them. “Bright side, Romanov owes me fifty bucks.”

 

That night, Clint dreams that he isn't, and will never be, alone again. In the instant between waking and sleeping, he has the briefest flash of fear that it's only a dream. But then he presses himself harder back against Phil, whose arm tightens around his chest.

 _Never alone_ , Phil thinks muzzily, only half awake, rubbing his hand over Clint's breastbone comfortingly and pressing gentle lips against his shoulder.

 _Never_ , Clint echoes, liking the shape that thought makes in his mind. He covers Phil's hand with his own and sinks easily back into sleep.

 

******  
Translation:  
уязвимый: vulnerable


End file.
